plete some task before or

after backup, you can! In

addition it can keep ver-

sions. For example it can

keep the last 4 version of

your files. So if you have

made changes to a docu-

ment over several days and

you relies the one 2 days

ago was the best, you can

retrieve it from your

backup.

So don’t shoot yourself in

the head, Backup!! And

verify periodically !

Having a good backup can

be one of the most impor-

tant things you can have.

There are many good pro-

grams out there and your

specific needs will dictate

your best choice. But I

have found Comodo

backup to be a good

choice. It’s available at

www.download.com. It

has all the basics, plus a

few unique features. You

can run batch or script

commands before and

after backup. So if you

need to start or close

down a program or com-

Handy Free Utilities and Applications

Inside this issue:

Backup 1

Filters 1-3

Gift Card Facts 1

Tech Corner 2

Training Program 2

What‟s New 8.3.9

Acclink, Ltd

CounterPoint SQL Connection

Gift Card Facts:

18% of Gift cards are unredeemed.

50.9% spend Much more then the

card value.

69% of Employees are more satis-

fied with gift cards over cash.

Customers are less inclined to price

shop when using gift cards. 40%

more shoppers paid full price.

Fewer returns, because shoppers are

choosing their own gift.

OCT 2009

Add Spellchecker to

CounterPoint

Thinking outside the box: Filters in CPSQL

There are filters for

everything today,

from coffee to cars.

Well CounterPoint

has them too. And

they can be very use-

ful.

You use them every

day, and you may not

even be aware of it.

More importantly how you can use them

to find the information you want. They

can be used to find a specific record or

when running a report for hundreds of

records. Sometimes the most important

aspect of using filters it to think outside

the box as they say. Say you have some-

one (like me) who can‟t spell to

save their life. As time goes by

they‟ve entered a lot of customers

into CounterPoint. Unfortunately

the spelling of the city may not be

what you would wish for.

Continued…

!!!!!!!!! Refer a Friend !!!!!!!!!! If you know someone who needs a Point of Sale or an Accounting System, have

them give us a call and you will receive an hour of consulting free. (they must

see a demo of one of our products-CounterPoint, Accpac or PeachTree)

If they purchase a system we will give

you an additional 2 hours of consulting or 2 cases of receipt paper.

Be sure to have them mention your company name when they call.

(877-890-5500)

We‟ve moved, well our website and email has….

See last page for details !!!

The new Atom-POS system.

Small, just over 10” tall. It has

the connections you need: 1

parallel, 3 serial, 6 USB ports.

It‟s good for the environment

as well. Using the new Intel

Atom processor it uses 1/3 the

power of most systems. It‟s

also miserly on the wallet, call

for information.

Thinking outside the box: Filters in CPSQL

You never would have guessed there were so many ways to spell Cincinnati ! Now you would

like to fix that but you really don‟t want to go through every customer and check. How about we

look at only customers whose city starts with “CIN”. We‟ll give our employee that much credit.

We could run a report but here is a faster way. Since in the end we want to correct any cus-

tomers with a misspelling of Cincinnati.

From the Main menu go to / Customers / Customers / -- click the filter icon.

Were now looking at the filter

screen.

But City is not one of the

choices. Right click in the

window and pick „Customize‟.

Click under the last line in the filter list to add a new line. CPSQL will automatically add a new

line, but unless you‟re incredibly lucky it won‟t be the right one.

So

click the new added line and scroll through the list for City and click on it. Then click on „is ex-

actly‟ and select „begins with‟. Now right click and pick „Simplify‟. Were now back at our filter

screen but with a new field. Enter „CIN‟ in the City field and then click the right arrow icon to

Acclink, Ltd

Technology Corner

Now available! Your own

personal trainer for Counter-

Point SQL. This will cover all

the basics from setup to use.

You can use it to refresh cur-

rent employees on CPSQL or

train new employees.

And unlike classroom train-

ing, you can use it over and

over again. You can navigate

directly to the area you want

to cover. You can backup,

pause or even skip sections.

If you would like to see a

demo of the training program

just let us know.

Thinking outside the box: Filters in CPSQL

What’s new in CounterPoint SQL 8.3.9

The next update of CounterPoint SQL will be released

in late July early August. See below for just a few of

the features you can look forward to.

start moving through the customer file. Only customers with a city that

begins with „CIN‟ will show. If you find a misspelled one, just fix it and

move on.

This same technique could be used to locate items by description. You

would select „Description‟ for the field and „contains‟ in place of „begins

with‟. This would automatically filter out all records except those that

„contained‟ your search text.

Your choices will vary depending on field type but look at some of your

choices. “At least, at mot, begins with, between, contains, doesn‟t contain,

ends with, is (exactly), is blank or empty, is empty, is in, in not (exactly),

less than, more than.”

Gift registries In this version of CounterPoint SQL, you can create and manage gift registries for your customers, allowing them to request and pur-

chase gifts for occasions such as weddings, baby showers, and so forth. This feature enables you to offer a valuable and commonly-

used service to your customers while driving traffic to your store.

User-entered discounts CounterPoint SQL now allows authorized users to enter ticket and line-item discounts in Ticket Entry and Touchscreen Ticket

Entry. User-entered ticket and line-item discounts are indicated on receipts, included on all relevant reports, and reflected in the cor-

responding accounting distributions for discounted tickets and items.

This feature provides support for basic discounting practices that are commonly used by most merchants, negating the need for cus-

tom modifications that were required to implement similar functionality in previous versions.

Point of Sale Exceptions report This version includes the Point of Sale Exceptions report, which allows you to track the ticket count, average ticket amount, drawer

overages and shortages, hours worked, and other daily statistics for each user, as well as the number of Point of Sale exceptions—

including price and tax overrides, voided tickets, cash drops and cash loans, manual credit authorizations, and so forth—that each

user performed over a specified period.

Scrapping items during returns Previously, when a customer returned an item that was broken, defective, or otherwise could not be resold, you were required to en-

ter and post an inventory adjustment to "scrap" the item.

In this version, you do not have to manually process inventory adjustments to remove scrapped items from inventory. Instead, you

can scrap an item while you are entering a return in Ticket Entry or Touchscreen Ticket Entry by specifying a valid Scrap reason

code for a return line. When you post a ticket with a Scrap reason code, CounterPoint automatically creates and posts the necessary

inventory adjustment transaction to remove the scrapped item from inventory and make the appropriate accounting distributions.

BOGO Pricing

"BOGO" (e.g., "buy one, get one free" or "buy one, get one for 50% off") and "twofer" (e.g., "2 for $1.00" or "3 for $5.00") price

rules for individual items or groups of items. You can also use BOGO/twofer price rules to define "stepped" or "copy shop" pricing

(e.g., buy the first 10 for $.10, the next 10 for $.09, and so forth), along with a variety of similar pricing schemes that allow items

sold in specific quantities to be given different per-unit prices.

This feature provides much greater pricing flexibility than was available in previous versions, allowing you to easily offer your cus-

tomers a broad range of common pricing scenarios.

Deactivated items In this version, you can use the Status field on the Items window to designate items as Deactivated. Unlike Discontinued items,

items that are Deactivated cannot be added to tickets, orders, purchase requests, receivings, or quick receivings.

This feature allows you to retain item records and historical data for items that you no longer sell, while preventing them from being

sold or purchased.

Margin-driven pricing Previously, you could define a minimum profit percentage for each item category and sub-category in CounterPoint. However, the

values you specified were informational only; CounterPoint did not calculate prices based on these values.

In this version, CounterPoint allows you to define Minimum margin and Target margin values for each item category and sub-

category, and then set Price-1 values for your items based on these margins. In addition, every Price-1 field throughout Counter-

Point now includes an easy-to-read, visual indicator of whether its current value is above, between, or below the minimum and target

margin values for the corresponding category or sub-category.

Prompting for tag-along item kit components Previously, when a user added the parent item of a tag-along item kit to a ticket, all of the kit's component items were added to the

ticket automatically. In this version, you can assign a Component prompt to any of the components of a tag-along item kit. This

feature allows a user to decide, at the time of the sale, whether to add each prompted component to the ticket when the user sells the

parent item in Ticket Entry or Touchscreen Ticket Entry.

Component items for which Component prompt values are not defined are still automatically added to the ticket when a user sells

the parent item.

Forecast-driven replenishment You can now create seasonal forecasts for your items, allowing you to more accurately estimate future demand based on historical

sales, using proven forecasting methods. Once you have created a forecast, CounterPoint can use the forecast data to calculate and

set the ideal minimum and maximum quantities for your items. In addition, you can generate purchasing advice based on the updated

minimum and maximum values to ensure that you have the forecasted quantities on hand for each period or season.

This feature allows you to more easily evaluate your inventory needs, dynamically adjust minimum and maximum quantities, and

automatically replenish your stock to meet changing demand for your items.

This feature relies on the aggregated historical data that is generated by the CounterPoint Data Mart Update scheduled task. If

you are not already aggregating data for Dashboard, you must schedule this task to aggregate

Generating purchasing advice for lowest-cost vendors Previously, when you generated purchasing advice, CounterPoint automatically used the primary vendor for each item that it recom-

mended for purchase, regardless of which vendor offered you the lowest cost for those items.

In this version, you can generate purchasing advice for your lowest-cost vendors by selected Lowest cost from the new Vendor field

on the Purchasing Advice report parameter window. This feature helps you ensure that you are paying the lowest possible amount

for the items you are restocking.

Generating purchasing advice using purchasing units You can now generate purchasing advice using purchasing units, instead of stocking units, by selecting the Vendor option from the

new Units field on the Purchasing Advice report parameter window. This feature allows you to replenish items using your vendors'

preferred units, without requiring you to modify the resulting purchase requests.

The new website is www.acclink.net (that‟s .net not .com) Our emails have also

changed to reflect the new website.

cbeasley@acclink.net

nkerns@acclink.net

cyoungman@acclink.net

Our new website and emails should be more reliable and the name easier to remember.